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Perhaps the biggest news from the Louisville Orchestra’s new 2017-18 season announcement is that in November, conductor Teddy Abrams will premiere “The Greatest: Muhammad Ali,” a musical celebration and tribute to the Louisville athlete and humanitarian.

This work comes off an eight-minute composition called “Float, Rumble, Rest,” which Abrams recorded with My Morning Jacket frontman and Louisville native Jim James shortly after Ali’s death in June.

This season — the orchestra’s 80th — offers works for both adventurous listeners, as well as those seeking balance in their selections. Other performances throughout the year include:

Why Beethoven?

Oct. 14, 2017

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 7

Conducted by Abrams, this is an All-Beethoven concert exploring the mind and heart of a composer whose influence still resounds today.

Other selections include 2017 Musical America’s Artist of the Year, Yuja Wang, performing Rachmaninoff; 2017 Grawemeyer winner Andrew Norman’s “Play” as well as Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” as a powerful season finale.

But if pop is maybe more your thing, Bob Bernhardt, the orchestra’s principal pops conductor, has you covered with a 50th anniversary celebration of The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” an evening of B52s tributes and the jazz duo Mambo Kings at the LO Pops.